This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Latin is the language in which the New Testament was copied, read, and studied for over a millennium. The remains of the initial 'Old Latin' version preserve important testimony for early forms of text and the way in which the Bible was understood by the first translators. Successive revisions resulted in a standard version subsequently known as the Vulgate which, along with the creation of influential commentaries by scholars such as Jerome and Augustine, shaped theology and exegesis for many centuries. Latin gospel books and other New Testament manuscripts illustrate the continuous tradition of Christian book culture, from the late antique codices of Roman North Africa and Italy to the glorious creations of Northumbrian scriptoria, the pandects of the Carolingian era, eleventh-century Giant Bibles, and the Paris Bibles associated with the rise of the university. In The Latin New Testament, H.A.G. Houghton provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and development of the Latin New Testament. Drawing on major editions and recent advances in scholarship, he offers a new synthesis which brings together evidence from Christian authors and biblical manuscripts from earliest times to the late Middle Ages. All manuscripts identified as containing Old Latin evidence for the New Testament are described in a catalogue, along with those featured in the two principal modern editions of the Vulgate. A user's guide is provided for these editions and the other key scholarly tools for studying the Latin New Testament.

Though considered one of the most important informants about Judaism in the first century CE, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus's testimony is often overlooked or downplayed. Jonathan Klawans's Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism reexamines Josephus's descriptions of sectarian disagreements concerning determinism and free will, the afterlife, and scriptural authority. In each case, Josephus's testimony is analyzed in light of his works' general concerns as well as relevant biblical, rabbinic, and Dead Sea texts.
Many scholars today argue that ancient Jewish sectarian disputes revolved primarily or even exclusively around matters of ritual law, such as calendar, cultic practices, or priestly succession. Josephus, however, indicates that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes disagreed about matters of theology, such as afterlife and determinism. Similarly, many scholars today argue that ancient Judaism was thrust into a theological crisis in the wake of the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, yet Josephus's works indicate that Jews were readily able to make sense of the catastrophe in light of biblical precedents and contemporary beliefs.
Without denying the importance of Jewish law-and recognizing Josephus's embellishments and exaggerations-Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism calls for a renewed focus on Josephus's testimony, and models an approach to ancient Judaism that gives theological questions a deserved place alongside matters of legal concern. Ancient Jewish theology was indeed significant, diverse, and sufficiently robust to respond to the crisis of its day.

Winner of the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise
Matthew Thiessen offers a nuanced and wide-ranging study of the nature of Jewish thought on Jewishness, circumcision, and conversion. Examining texts from the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity, he gives a compelling account of the various forms of Judaism from which the early Christian movement arose.
Beginning with analysis of the Hebrew Bible, Thiessen argues that there is no evidence that circumcision was considered to be a rite of conversion to Israelite religion. In fact, circumcision, particularly the infant circumcision practiced within Israelite and early Jewish society, excluded from the covenant those not properly descended from Abraham. In the Second Temple period, many Jews began to subscribe to a definition of Jewishness that enabled Gentiles to become Jews. Other Jews, such as the author of Jubilees, found this definition problematic, reasserting a strictly genealogical conception of Jewish identity. As a result, some Gentiles who underwent conversion to Judaism in this period faced criticism because of their suspect genealogy.
Thiessen's examination of the way in which Jews in the Second Temple period perceived circumcision and conversion allows a deeper understanding of early Christianity. Contesting Conversion shows that careful attention to a definition of Jewishness that was based on genealogical descent has crucial implications for understanding the variegated nature of early Christian mission to the Gentiles in the first century C.E.

The Life of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus was one of the formative works of Latin hagiography. Yet although written by a contemporary who knew Martin, it attracted immediate criticism. Why? This study seeks an explanation by placing Sulpicius works both in their intellectual context, and in the context of a church that was then undergoing radical transformation. It is thus both a study of Sulpicius, Martin, and their world, and at the same time an essay in the interpretation of hagiography.

Arianism is the archetypal Christian heresy. It was not only a watershed historically; its central issue-the question of Christ's full co-equal divinity as Son of God-remains an issue of deep concern to every generation of Christians, including our own. The traditional critique of Arianism is that its errors arise from an over-intellectual approach to Christianity, that it failed because it lacked a gospel of salvation. Questions about that traditional view have been raised here and there in recent years. This book challenges it head on. It does no on a basis of careful scholarship, and at the same time in a lively and readable style.' Maurice Wiles, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford 'Gregg and Groh have enabled us to see the thought of Arius on the nature of Christ as condensing nothing less than a distinctive view of man, congruent to a precise social and religious milieu. As a result, the clash of disembodied dogmas becomes suffused with the quality of a late Roman Christian's most urgent concerns: "love and betrayal, grace and backsliding". Now presented with liberating precision in all its implications-from conflicting attitudes to change and stability in society and the universe, to vivid glimpses of the bustling world of Greek cities contrasted with the unearthly stillness of St Anthony in the desert-a well-worn chapter of Christian dogma emerges as a high moment in the birth of a new civilization in the Roman world. This is a model book, that any scholar of Christian doctrine would dearly wish to have written; and that every scholar of the early Christian world must read.' Peter Brown, Professor of History and Classics in the University of California at Berkeley 'Gregg and Groh propose a novel approach to the most profound crisis of the dogmatic tradition in the ancient church. They extract from the denunciation of the errors of Arius ... a striking view of the ancient doctrine of salvation. The principle aspects of this doctrine remain too often neglected by the critics. But with Gregg and Groh the saviour God of Arius is brought back to life, reactivated ... The authors display in convincing fashion the original accents of this doctrine, at the heart of the Christian community, before it had become nothing but a heresy charged doctrine... They promote a healthy reflection on the more fixed forms of antiArian dogmatism, passively transmitted over the centuries.' Charles Kannengiesser, Professeur a Onstitut Catholique de Paris

Rarely did ancient authors write about the lives of women; even more rarely did they write about the lives of ordinary women: not queens or heroines who influenced war or politics, not sensational examples of virtue or vice, not Christian martyrs or ascetics, but women of moderate status, who experienced everyday joys and sorrows and had everyday merits and failings. Such a woman was Monica-now Saint Monica because of her relationship with her son Augustine, who wrote about her in the Confessions and elsewhere. Despite her rather unremarkable life, Saint Monica has inspired a robust controversy in academia, the Church, and the Augustine-reading public alike: some agree with Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who knew Monica, that Augustine was exceptionally blessed in having such a mother, while others think that Monica is a classic example of the manipulative mother who lives through her son, using religion to repress his sexual life and to control him even when he seems to escape. In Monica: An Ordinary Saint, Gillian Clark reconciles these competing images of Monica's life and legacy, arriving at a woman who was shrewd and enterprising, but also meek and gentle. Weighing Augustine's discussion of his mother against other evidence of women's lives in late antiquity, Clark achieves portraits both of Monica individually, and of the many women like her. Augustine did not claim that his mother was a saint, but he did think that the challenges of everyday life required courage and commitment to Christian principle. Monica's ordinary life, as both he and Clark tell it, showed both. Monica: An Ordinary Saint illuminates Monica, wife and mother, in the context of the societal expectations and burdens that shaped her and all ordinary women.

This book considers how homes, households, and domestic life are related to the Church. Early theologies glorified the monastic lifestyle as a way to transcend earthly attachments in favor of supernatural goods. Later thinkers have seen that functioning marriages and families themselves can lead us toward a more righteous society. Issues of gender quickly come into play. Are households the "woman's sphere"? Does this bar women from full participation in the Church? And what of the many people today who are neither married nor consecrated in a holy life? How do we think about the Christian "households" of such singles? Jana Bennett addresses these questions. She insists that both marriage and singleness must be placed in the context of the Christian story of redemption if the questions and problems at stake are to be fully understood. Surprisingly, she finds that Augustine of Hippo, much maligned by modern theologians, is the source of very fruitful reflection on these topics, showing us that both marriage and singleness are most properly set in the context of the salvation story. Most scholars today would agree that Augustine's works have exerted great influence on Western views of marriage, family, and sex. But they would also argue that this influence has been detrimental to a healthy understanding of these topics. However, through the lens of Augustine's work, Bennett shows that marriage and singleness cannot be considered separately, that gender issues are important to considering these states correctly and, most important, that the marriage between Christ and the Church is the first mediator in these states of life.

Who was Paul of Tarsus? Radical visionary of a new age? Gender-liberating progressive? Great defender of orthodoxy? In Remembering Paul, Benjamin L. White offers a critique of early Christian claims about the real Paul in the second century C.E.a period in which apostolic memory was highly contestedand sets these ancient contests alongside their modern counterpart: attempts to rescue the historical Paul from his canonical entrapments. Examining numerous early Christian sources, White argues that Christians of the second century had no access to the real Paul. Rather, they possessed mediations of Paul as a personaidealized images transmitted in the context of communal memories of the Apostle. Through the selection, combination, and interpretation of pieces of a diverse earlier layer of the Pauline tradition, Christians defended images of the Apostle that were important for forming collective identity. As products of memory, images of Paul exhibit unique mixtures of continuity with and change from the past. Ancient discourses on the real Paul, thus, like their modern counterparts, are problematic. Through a host of exclusionary practices, the real Paul, whose authoritative persona carries authority as the first window into Christianity, was and continues to be invoked as a wedge to gain traction for the conservation of ideology.

Most readers first encounter Augustine's love for Scripture's words in the many biblical allusions of his masterwork, the Confessions. Augustine does not merely quote texts, but in many ways makes Scripture itself tell the story. In his journey from darkness to light, Augustine becomes Adam in the Garden of Eden, the Prodigal Son of Jesus' parable, the Pauline double personality at once devoted to and rebellious against God's law. Throughout he speaks the words of the Psalms as if he had written them. Crucial to Augustine's self-portrayal is his skill at transposing himself into the texts. He sees their properties and dynamics as his own, and by extension, every believing reader's own. In Christ Meets Me Everywhere, Michael Cameron argues that Augustine wanted to train readers of Scripture to transpose themselves into the texts in the same way he did, by the same process of figuration that he found at its core. Tracking Augustine's developing practice of self-transposition into the figures of the biblical texts over the course of his entire career, Cameron shows that this practice is the key to Augustine's hermeneutics.

Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut its doors forever in 529. His work, Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, is the last surviving independent philosophical treatise from the Late Academy. Its survey of Neoplatonist metaphysics, discussion of transcendence, and compendium of late antique theologies, make it unique among all extant works of late antique philosophy. It has never before been translated into English.
The Problems and Solutions exhibits a thorough?going critique of Proclean metaphysics, starting with the principle that all that exists proceeds from a single cause, proceeding to critique the Proclean triadic view of procession and reversion, and severely undermining the status of intellectual reversion in establishing being as the intelligible object. Damascius investigates the internal contradictions lurking within the theory of descent as a whole, showing that similarity of cause and effect is vitiated in the case of processions where one order (e.g. intellect) gives rise to an entirely different order (e.g. soul).
Neoplatonism as a speculative metaphysics posits the One as the exotic or extopic explanans for plurality, conceived as immediate, present to hand, and therefore requiring explanation. Damascius shifts the perspective of his metaphysics: he struggles to create a metaphysical discourse that accommodates, insofar as language is sufficient, the ultimate principle of reality. After all, how coherent is a metaphysical system that bases itself on the Ineffable as a first principle? Instead of creating an objective ontology, Damascius writes ever mindful of the limitations of dialectic, and of the pitfalls and snares inherent in the very structure of metaphysical discourse.

Teaching Christianity is the most original book Augustine ever wrote. It is not so much a treatise or scholarly work but an instruction manual on how to teach Christianity. He wrote this how to book for those who would be preaching and explaining Christianity. It is entirely based on the bible and helps the reader express its truths of faith with soundproof methodology. It is a book that will help readers to communicate their message in a clear and effective way. Edmund Hills new translation of Augustines treatise On Christian Doctrine is superb. His early and mature thought on how to understand scripture and how to communicate that understanding to others is set forth clearly and attractively. The translator has shown great discernment in his choice of words and in their placement. This makes for a smooth reading. Extremely valuable are the scholarly endnotes provided after each of the four books. The new title chosen by Edmund Hill, namely, Teaching Christianity indicates that Augustine is here instructing the African clergy, probably the bishops, how to preach effectively to their congregations. The treatise is not focused on doctrine. Sr. Mary T. Clark, RSCJ Manhattanville College President, Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy

Augustine knows by faith that God is a trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is seeking as far as possible to understand what he believes. In the first seven books Augustine begins by searching the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for clues to understanding, and then argues in the language of philosophy and logic to defend the orthodox statement of the doctrine against the Arians. In the last eight books Augustine seeks to understand the mystery of the divine Trinity by observing an analogous trinity in the image of God, which is the human mind; and in so doing he also suggests a programme for the serious Christian of spiritual self-discovery and renewal. The Second Edition now features convenient footnotes rather than the previously used endnotes.

This volume, the first in a major new series which will provide authoritative texts of key non-canonical gospel writings, comprises a critical edition, with full translations, of all the extant manuscripts of the Gospel of Mary. In addition, an extended Introduction discusses the key issues involved in the interpretation of the text, as well as locating it in its proper historical context, while a Commentary explicates points of detail. The gospel has been important in many recent discussions of non-canonical gospels, of early Christian Gnosticism, and of discussions of the figure of Mary Magdalene. The present volume will provide a valuable resource for all future discussions of this important early Christian text.

There have been many books written to assist churchwardens in discharging their duties, detailing their responsibilities in respect of the intricacies of ecclesiastical law and making the role seem quite a challenge. The office of churchwarden is one of the oldest recognised forms of Lay Ministry and is the highest position of trust and responsibility that the Church gives to its lay people. The churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion, usually working as a part-time volunteer. They are ex officio members of the parish board, usually called a vestry, parochial church council, or in the case of a cathedral parish, the chapter. Over the centuries churchwardens have acquired many 'hats,' carrying out tasks that required a broad range of skills both practical and pastoral. They came to the fore during the time when the vestry evolved to be a key element of political democracy in local government. The aim of this, sometimes whimsical, book is to illustrate the various roles and situations churchwardens would have had to deal with, from the early years of the Christian Church to the present time. By exploring these important roles and their dilemmas in interpreting complex laws and social problems throughout the ages, will perhaps reassure current post-holders that they are indeed better off than their predecessors.

Arianism has been called the "archetypal Christian heresy" - a denial of the divine status of Christ. In his examination, now augmented by new material, Rowan Williams argues that Arius himself was a dedicated theological conservative whose concern was to defend the free and personal character of the Christian God. His "heresy" grew out of the attempt to unite traditional biblical language with radical philosophical ideas and techiniques, and was, from the start, involved with issues of authority in the church. Thus, the crisis of the early 4th century was not only about the doctrine of God, but also about the relations between emperors, bishops and ascetical "charismatic" teachers in the church's decision-making. Williams raises the wider questions of how heresy is defined and how certain kinds of traditionalism transform themselves into heresy. With a fresh conclusion, in which the author reflects on how his views have changed or remained the same, and a new introduction, this book is suitable reading for students of patristics, doctrine and church history.

New Testament I and II represents Vol. I/15 and I/16 in the Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. The present volume contains the translations of four works, all of which are exegetical treatises of one sort or another: The Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Agreement among the Evangelists, Questions on the Gospels and Seventeen Questions on Matthew. Each of the four works are accompanied by its own introduction, general index, and scripture index. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount (translated by Michael Campbell, OSA) is an exegesis of chapters five through seven of Matthew's Gospel, but Augustine's explanation of the Sermon is more a charter of Christian morality and spirituality than mere exegesis of the text and brings a unity to the lengthy discourse that goes far beyond an account of what the text says. Augustine wrote Agreement among the Evangelists in 400, contemporaneously with the composition of his Confessions (397 - 401).The treatise, translated by Kim Paffenroth, is an attempt to defend the veracity of the four evangelists in the face of seeming incompatibilities in their record of the gospel events, especially against some pagan philosophers who raised objections to the gospel narratives based on alleged inconsistencies. Questions on the Gospels and Seventeen Questions on Matthew are translated by Roland Teske, SJ. Questions on the Gospels is a record of questions that arose when Augustine was reading the Gospels of Matthew and Luke with a disciple. The answers to the questions are not intended to be commentaries on the Gospels in their entirety but merely represent the answers to the questions that arose for the student at the time. Seventeen Questions on Matthew is similarly in the question-and-answer genre and is most likely by Augustine, but it includes some paragraphs at the end that are certainly not his. For all those who are interested in the greatest classics of Christian antiquity, Augustine's works are indispensable. This long-awaited translation makes Augustine's monumental work approachable.ABOUT THE AUTHOR Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the Western world. After he converted to Christianity he became bishop of Hippo in North Africa, where he was influential in civil and church affairs. His writings have had a lasting impact on Western philosophy and culture.

This is a source book for students of the patristic period and a companion volume to 'Creeds, Councils and Controversies' and 'Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church'. This updated edition incorporates vital documents that were not available when the original collection was compiled.

Soliloquies is a work from Augustine's early life, shortly after his conversion, in which are visible all the seeds contained in his future writings. Here we see Augustine as a philosopher, a thinker and a budding theologian.

In the first decades after Christ a small movement from the Middle East rapidly grew to become an empire-wide phenomenon. Soon there were established Christian communities spreading from Jerusalem to Rome, all grappling with the same issue: how to live their new-found faith? A Social History of the Early Church seeks to answer this question by exploring what life was actually like for the first Christians. Through detailed analyses of archaeological evidence and contemporary accounts, Simon Jones addresses topics such as the role of pagan religion, people's sources of entertainment, the nature of family life, how societies were structured and the changing role of women. This book is a fascinating survey that brings this period vividly to life for scholars at all levels of study.

As inheritors of Platonic traditions, many Jews and Christians today do not believe that God has a body. God is instead invisible and incorporeal, and even though Christians believe that God can be seen in Jesus, God otherwise remains veiled from human sight. In this ground-breaking work, Brittany E. Wilson challenges this prevalent view by arguing that early Jews and Christians often envisioned God as having a visible form. Within the New Testament, Luke-Acts in particular emerges as an important example of a text that portrays God in visually tangible ways. According to Luke, God is a perceptible, concrete being who can take on a variety of different forms, as well as a being who is intimately intertwined with human fleshliness in the form of Jesus. In this way, the God of Israel does not adhere to the incorporeal deity of Platonic philosophy, especially as read through post-Enlightenment eyes. Given the corporeal connections between God and Jesus, Luke's depiction of Jesus's body also points ahead to future controversies concerning his divinity and humanity in the early church. Indeed, questions concerning God's body are inextricably linked with Christology and shed light on how we are to understand Jesus's own visible embodiment in relation to God. In The Embodied God, Wilson reframes approaches to early Christology within New Testament scholarship and calls for a new way of thinking about divine-and human-bodies and embodied experience.

Greek and Roman stories of origin, or aetia, provide a fascinating window onto ancient conceptions of time. Aetia pervade ancient literature at all its stages, and connect the past with the present by telling us which aspects of the past survive "even now" or "ever since then". Yet, while the standard aetiological formulae remain surprisingly stable over time, the understanding of time that lies behind stories of origin undergoes profound changes. By studying a broad range of texts and by closely examining select stories of origin from archaic Greece, Hellenistic Greece, Augustan Rome, and early Christian literature, Time in Ancient Stories of Origin traces the changing forms of stories of origin and the underlying changing attitudes to time: to the interaction of the time of gods and men, to historical time, to change and continuity, as well as to a time beyond the present one. Walter provides a model of how to analyse the temporal construction of aetia, by combining close attention to detail with a view towards the larger temporal agenda of each work. In the process, new insights are provided both into some of the best-known aetiological works of antiquity (e.g. by Hesiod, Callimachus, Vergil, Ovid) and lesser-known works (e.g. Ephorus, Prudentius, Orosius). This volume shows that aetia do not merely convey factual information about the continuity of the past, but implicate the present in ever new complex messages about time.

Luke, the eponymous author of the gospel that bears his name as well as the book of Acts, wrote the largest portion of the New Testament. Luke is generally thought to be a gentile. This book addresses a question raised by Jesus's disciples at the very beginning of Acts: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" The question is freighted with political and national significance as it inquires about the restoration of political sovereignty to the Jewish people. This book investigates Luke's perspective on the salvation of Israel in light of Jewish restoration eschatology. It situates Luke-Acts in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The author of Luke-Acts did not write the Jews off but still awaited the restoration of Israel. Luke conceived of Israel's eschatological restoration in traditional Jewish terms. The nation of Israel would experience liberation in the fullest sense, including national and political restoration. Luke's Jewish Eschatology builds upon the appreciation of the Jewish character of early Christianity in the decades after the Holocaust, which has witnessed the reclamation of the Jewishness of the historical Jesus and even Paul.

The book should be seen in the context of Paul Bradshaw's earlier works: The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship and Eucharistic Origins. In this book he updates his thinking in this area.

This text re-examines the great variety of liturgical practices in the first four centuries in the light of modern Jewish and Christian scholarship. This new edition takes account of the new research in the field that has taken place since the book was first published, with additional chapters on Minisrty and Ordination and The Effects of the Coming of Christendom in the Fourth Century.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado's steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.